For Jennifer

Rev. Dorothy-Yorke Alloway, Ph. D.  10.8.1998

You light some jasmine incense.

Smoke imitates a bird, a feather, then disappears.

You sit on a woven mat, your spine facing West to East.

Balance resides in your presence

paying homage to the sun radiating in your smile.

You have offered your spirit to the absence of strife.

Peace rests on every object now...

your periwinkle scarf draped on a polished silver hook,

a verdant marble egg, the pale yellow teapot filled with steaming milk and a plum blush held captive in your warm sable brushes resting on worn battenberg.

Outside the crisp air exhales crystal faeries in a blur

skipping across the frozen sill.

You close your eyes, breath deeply

filling your center with translucent calm.

Exquisite to behold!

You arrive at this place elfin yet wearied of life’s tricks.

The hype, the funk, the veneer,

all trappings of another time.

You’ve given up your designer affair,

the glamour of upper mobility faded and worn.

You’ve given over your father’s name

and run from man-made fiber and the skins of chickens and all that lurks beneath.

The lure of flash and pan no longer seduces you.

I sit still in my twice stuffed chair watching, unable to write or move,

drinking in your sense of self and the peace that fills the space. 

I marvel, thinking, that entire body came from within me.

Your torso dips and sways

lithe as a frond in the pool

your arms splayed like tender petals

your hair shining and floating, comes to rest at your side.

It is obvious you know intimately the very essence of water.

Have I told you how I admire your spirit, your strength, your resilience?

Life has taken many things but it has not stolen your grace or tainted your innate beauty.